Building Better Leaders, Stronger Teams, and Bigger Results with Jens Nielsen

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is Jens Nielsen, executive coach, business strategist, leadership advisor, and entrepreneur who helps leaders and organizations unlock sustainable growth through intentional leadership and high-performing teams. Drawing from his extensive experience working with executives, founders, and business leaders, Jens shares practical insights on building resilient organizations, developing effective leadership habits, improving communication, and creating cultures where people and businesses thrive together. We also explore the importance of strategic thinking, accountability, coaching, continuous learning, and leading with clarity in today's fast-changing business environment. Whether you're an entrepreneur, executive, coach, manager, or aspiring leader, this conversation offers actionable strategies for growing your business, empowering your team, and creating long-term success through strong leadership.

You can find him on:
https://jensnielsen.us/
https://www.facebook.com/jens.nielsen.5243
https://www.instagram.com/opendoorscapital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenswnielsen/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Don't look at what you think your own value is. Look at what the impact is that you have on that client and price yourself, price your services accordingly to the impact versus what you think your own worth is, right? But I definitely underpriced myself early on.

Davis Nguyen 0:17

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swain, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:02

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Jens Nielsen, founder of Open Doors Capital and a certified high performance coach. Jens immigrated from Denmark and walked away from 25 years in IT to build a career in a real estate investing environment and coaching, working with mid to late career professionals, navigating big transitions and small business owners ready to scale. Welcome to the show, Jens. Thanks, Pedro. I'm excited to be here today. Oh, I'm excited to talk with you, man. I already loved the origin story. Denmark, IT, then moving to the US. But you know, I want to dig in there a little deeper because I'm kind of a comic book nerd myself. I I love the first editions. So let's rewind a bit because every coach has that moment when they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you? Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, so it actually goes a little bit deep because I, in addition to what you talked about in the intro, IT and shifting to different careers, I've also been a cyclist my whole life, you know, growing up in Denmark. Everybody rides their bikes. When I came to the US, I started getting into bicycle racing. There's a story behind this. I got into bicycle racing, mountain bike racing, road racing, and stuff like that, because that was you know the thing that everybody was doing in the late 90s. And I really felt that's the only sport. We were talking about uh, you know, football or soccer before we recorded. I tried that as a kid, I sucked at it, so I never got into that. Cycling is the one thing I actually was pretty good at. So as I was working, I was also racing my bike a lot, right? And I was pretty good. But as I got older, like into my 40s, by naturally you start, you know, you're not quite as fit or as fast as you were in your 20s and 30s. So things started to slow down from a physical standpoint, not dramatic, just a little bit. But I didn't accept that slowdown. It's like, I can continue to do this, I can continue to push through this, I'm good enough. Let me just show everybody how damn good I am. So I kept pushing really, really hard. And it was all about yen. So it was all about me, how good was I, the zero-sum game. Until, and this is now eight years ago, I had this horrendous crass in Grand Junction, Colorado in a mountain bike race. Lacerated my kidney, fractured some vertebrates in my back, ended up in the ICU for five days on heavy-duty pain meds and stuff like that. And, you know, pretty bad situation, right? Uh internal bleeding and all this stuff. You know, thank God I'm 100% recovered. But lying in that hospital bed, I was like, wait a minute, what the heck am I doing? It was all about me. It was all about how, you know, how good I was compared to everybody else. And I tied so much of my self-worth to how good I was as a bike racer. This is kind of stupid because I was just an amateur, right? But that was self-worth was tied to that. So at that point, I was like, wait a minute, something has to change, right? How can I start giving back? How can I start, you know, living life more fully, more inclusively with more people, and and so on, right? And that's that was really the impetus to get into the coaching. I had started a little bit, it was like, man, I can serve people. I have a long life, a long life of experience. So that was really the the triggering or the decision point there. Probably not the direction you expected the conversation would go, but that's really what happened.

Pedro Stein 4:37

I love that direction, man. It's almost like a wake-up call. Sometimes we need to get to a certain point that we we need a little shakedown, you know, so we can realize we're this is not the right path. It's good that you were able to realize that, right? By actually by your own, like unfortunately through an accident, right? But it is what it is. You got there, and now you're aware and you were able to make a change if you were willing to do so, right? And it sounds like you did, you know, it can impact more people. It's not just about you, yes, right, as you were saying. Now, I'm curious about one thing, right? I mentioned IT 25 years in the game, and then we move to cycling, and there is a kind of a shift in identity here. I tend to notice on coaches, which is in the early days of coaching, they're like helping people. Sounds even like a calling, right? They're giving advice, they're helping here and there, but eventually they realize okay, I'm actually building a real business around this, you know, and there is sometimes there is an aha moment, right? I'm not sure if it's the first paying client, I'm not sure if it's the first invoice. When you realize, okay, this is not just advice giving, you know, and helping others. This is like a business. So, can you walk us through how that felt for you? Like first, the identity shift from helping people, IT guy, cyclist, to coach, uh the realization of a real business.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, it's important. I think a lot of people, a lot of coaches struggle with that because they never want to build the the business side of it, they just want to coach people. And they, you know, they struggle because they never know how to sell and all this stuff. So we we know that, right? Luckily, so so kind of you know what happened to me, right? So I started investing in commercial real estate 10 years ago. That was kind of my exit from the W-2 job. That was the plan, and it's also helped me exit. But as I was learning all this stuff about real estate and business and stuff, I was like, wow, I would love to help other people in these aspects, right? So I slowly started adding, you know, mentorship into it. But then I also realized, like, okay, real estate is great some years, other years it really sucks. I don't know if I can actually maintain an income. You know, I don't have a job anymore, still have bills to pay and stuff. So I didn't know if I could maintain an income on the real estate alone state alone. Said, okay, I'll build the real estate in the good years, in the bad years, I'll just slow down, but I'll build a business around initially like mentoring in real estate into like high performance coaching, into the business side, because I knew there was enough motivation there to build that side so that I could continue to make an income. I early on decided that, hey, I this is a business. I need to have clients, I need to make money, I need to coach and help you, but also I need to make an income on it, right? So there's a calling from doing it, but not just for that. There's a business around that, right? Because also when you create a business, you find new ways to be even more impactful. And that's what I find was really big for me as well.

Pedro Stein 7:31

Yeah, it's almost like you gotta solve stuff, right? Problems arise, you're not prepared in the entrepreneurship journey, and uh you start getting creative sometimes, right? Right? You got stuff, you start getting resourceful. Now, I'm curious about another thing. You mentioned uh the coaching part, but you mentioned the real estate too, and they kind of get mixed in the back here. But I want to understand from you, first of all, the evolution of who you serve, right, from the early days. Because in the coaching space, sometimes we're just trying to make ends meet, we're helping everyone in the early days. It's it gets kind of messy. Not sure it's your situation, but I've seen happening a lot. So the evolution on that, and who do you serve right now? Like, because eventually we attract a certain type of people, we understand who we can actually help.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, I started out by basically helping other people that wanted to invest in real estate. You know, 10 years ago, bought my first property, figured out what it means to, you know, underwrite and finance it and get investors and all these things. So I learned it. I had my own mentors and coaches through that, but I learned it and I was like, okay, well, I can figure this stuff out. Uh let me see if there are other people out there who need this type of help, right? And quite quickly, you know, other people say, Hey, Jens, you've done a few deals. Would you can you help me do my first deals? Like, absolutely, right? So I would just be, I call this consulting, right? Because this is more like consulting people in how to buy a real estate deal. Coaching and consulting didn't, I didn't really know the difference back in the day, right? So I started consulting, but then I also realized that a lot of people, yeah, then they knew they could figure out how to underwrite a deal if it made sense, but they wouldn't take action because they had their own limiting beliefs, they had fears, they had hesitations. So then I was like, oh, it's about the mindset. It's not about figuring out how to buy a deal. It's about the mindset do they have, right? Can they can they get themselves out of their own way? So that's why the high performance coaching really came in. And then I realized, well, how high performance coaching doesn't only apply to real estate investors, it applies to all kinds of people because we all have limiting beliefs, poor productivity, we're not don't have the right courage, influence, and so on, right? So what I ended up doing move towards that. I was like, okay, who are really the people that need me? And I found out, oh, it's senior leaders in organizations because they're dealing with so much stuff in their business and their personal life. But if they don't have somebody to talk to, they get stuck, they get frustrated, they whatever, overwork themselves. So that's one. And then also the business the small business owners, because they are quite often in their own way, they are by themselves and stuff like that. So there's a lot of parallels there. So that's kind of what I serve now. You know, that person that's in transition late in their late in their career, mid-late career, it's small business owners. And then I've actually also started to work with a lot of real estate agents because they're also small business owners quite often by themselves and they run into that. So does that does that kind of describe the evolution there?

Pedro Stein 10:30

Of course. A little game of pretend here right now. I'm gonna pretend I'm your ideal client profile, right? I can tell there are different variants to that. But let's say I'm uh a high performance senior leader of an organization, could be not so small. So I'm a or a small business, or we can work with those, the both of them. I think those are are pretty clear. Okay. So, first of all, how would I be able to find you, Jens? You know, marketing-wise.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, so in today's world and the way I build my business is really about referrals and in person, right? Yeah, I have my own website and so on, but I feel like today building the necessary trust for somebody to invest, you know, a significant amount of money into a coach, trust has to be built. And I feel like today the way to build trust is by getting referred to somebody, meeting somebody in person and so on, right? And I've actually built the business. I mean, yes, I have a little bit of a social media presence, I have those websites, but I build my business really around deep conversations with people on the ground, if you will, right? You know, I host bunts of live events here, I get referrals, I do things like that. And that had actually been enough to build you know, a multi-six-figure business for myself, you know. Okay. Interesting.

Pedro Stein 11:48

So let's pretend, still in the game, pretend, that I you're I'm your ICP and I was referred to work with you, or even checked your website eventually through SEO, Google, whatever. And I'm like, you know what? This Jens guy, this guy from Denmark, it seems cool, right? And I reached out to you and I'm like, hey, uh, we'd love to work with you, love to understand what's you know what that entails, what's the the engagement and how that looks like. So we can speed up the sales process a bit, really up to you. We can say there is alignment because what I really want to understand and and know from you is like, could you give us like a peek behind a curtain? How does it look like to work with you in your business and the outcomes I can expect?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, I mean, obviously it depends on what challenges and stuff like they either come because they have pain they want to resolve or because they have an amazing dream they want to achieve, right? If things are good, yeah, people usually don't need a coach, right? If there's enough pain or there's enough gain, people look there, right? So the sales process, well, just shortcut that, but I do spend a lot of time getting to know people because I can only handle a handful of clients and I want to make sure it's the right client for me that's ready to do the work, right? So, you know, we probably see each other for two or three hours before I even say yes to you as a client, right? Just because I want to make sure because my relationships are usually multi-year long. If we decide it's a good fit, yeah, we will schedule regular calls, right? I tend to meet people either every two weeks, every month, depending on their schedule and how quickly they want to move, but no less than six months and quite often 12 months or longer, just so there's enough time to create the necessary change, right? And my goal is to really understand not only what's going on in your business, what's going on in your personal life, what's going on in your health, what's going on in your productivity, so that I can see all the different aspects. So I'm not fixing a business problem if it's actually a relationship problem or something like that. You know, and a lot of people struggle with opening up to that level because they're like, oh, my employees suck. Okay, maybe they do, but what are you bringing to the table here? Well, I'm arguing with my wife all the time, so I'm uh I'm not very kind when I go to work. It's like, okay, well, we should probably look at the relationship angle first so that you can become a kinder person, have more patience with your employees and so on.

Pedro Stein 14:08

So it sounds like you end up coaching the whole person, right? Sometimes uh personal life affects business, is that what you're telling me?

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Absolutely, right. I mean, it's you cannot separate the two, right? We're not, unless it's uh severance that show on TV, right? We we are that person at home, at work, and everything influences the two, right? I'm sure you experienced that, right? If you have a bad day with a loved one, that's gonna carry over into your business. And if you're all your clients have been assholes, that day that may carry over into your personal life, right? So we can't separate it too. That's why we have to, that's why we call it high performance, not just high achieving. And I explained that to a client, potential client, a couple of weeks ago. I said, you already are high achiever, you have a great business, you're making tons of money. That's not the problem. Are you a high performer? When I start explaining what high performer, it's like, no, I'm not. Because I have a you know, I have a decent family life, but not an amazing family life. I have a decent community, but not an amazing community, right? And that's what we gotta work on then.

Pedro Stein 15:13

Oh, it's a full circle, it sounds like we're looking at personal life, we're looking at the business life, what what's you know, underneath those. But I'm curious, right? What's the main reason you think people first reach out to you and the main outcome you usually provide? You know, like if you had to tell me, like top of mind, that you can help me with X, Y, and Z problem, what is that problem? It's like I'm hitting a ceiling, am I spinning my wheels just to wrap my head around?

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yeah, I mean, it's it's basically two things, right? If you are in the key outcome that I like to do is people they are, this is use my own example, right? I was in a W-2 job that was good but not amazing. I needed a change, I didn't know what that change was, right? So people that are, they feel like something has to change, but they don't know what it is. I love to work with those people because we generate ideas, we come up with something new, right? Maybe they need to quit their job and start a business themselves. In a place of dissatisfaction with your current situation, that's a great starting point. Or if you if you're a small business owner, you're quite also probably dissatisfied with your situation, especially if you've created a business where you are in the middle of everything, you're doing all the work, you're not delegating and so on, you're also in a place of dissatisfaction. But you know there's something better. Because if you're just in a dissatisfaction and it leads to kind of you know downward spiral, that's not a good spot. But if you're not optimistic enough and coachable enough to say there isn't there's an upside here, that's the right thing, right? So the outcomes, well, the outcomes are, you know, I've had people that have left their job to pursue business opportunities. I have people who have, you know, become much more engaged in their job because they realize they just need to put more energy into it. I've had people that have improved their personal life because they realize, well, while their spouses, their relationship with their spouse may not have been great, they still love that person and they wanted to put energy back into it.

Pedro Stein 17:09

Now, let me ask you this. It's kind of a curveball here, Jens, because you mentioned something that really caught my attention, which is like you can only serve so many clients, right? There is a limitation to it. And by hearing you, it sounds like we're talking about a not a cookie cutter program. We're talking about a very customized experience. And I've seen in the space a lot of coaches out there that they have this point of view of avoiding people to burn out and get to their best version of themselves. But at the same time, they're wearing a lot of hats in their own business, right? And sometimes they're burning themselves out. How do you navigate that? You know, how do you think about capacity so you don't stretch yourself too thin?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, no, that's that's valid, right? Because doing one-on-one coaching, you can't really scale yourself unless you create an AI clone and stuff like that, right? So I have limits on how many coaching calls I will do every week. You know, back in the day, I'll just fill every day, every evening, every weekend. Now I'm like, hey, it's Monday through Thursday. Those are my coaching days, and I know how many calls I want to have so that I don't reach, you know, Wednesday and I'm already burned out, right? So I have enough energy and so on, right? So that's that's a limit on me. Yeah, I I 100% know that that also limits my, you know, how many how many clients I can serve, how much income I can make. I totally get that. But that's how it's worked with me. There are other coaches out there creating programs and group stuff, and I do a little bit of group work. I find okay, but I really just enjoy the one-on-one more. That seems to I I seem to thrive on that with the downsides I just mentioned.

Pedro Stein 18:45

Mm-hmm. Okay. You know, another topic I'm very curious about is pricing, but not necessarily talking about hard numbers, right? More about the mindset behind it. Like you mentioned yourself, like you replaced a salary, for example. And in the early days of coaching, there is a lot of sometimes scarcity mindset, like trying to help everyone, you know. Sometimes pricing is like, oh my God, it's a very self-forced path. Should I be charging so much? And am I undervaluing myself? I see coaches out there like trying to do free work pro bono, and they're not even there, they're getting people showing up. So it's a very tough topic. So, what I'm thinking is, how do you think about it today? You know, and weren't there any lessons along the way that shape how you landed where you are now?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

It is definitely an area of limiting belief in me and in others, right? Because it seems like every time you are in front of some potential client, you're trying to judge that person's ability to pay and so on. So a couple of, you know, I know what my coach charges me. Like what am I willing to pay myself, right? I know that. So that's an anchor for me. And then I, it's funny, right? As my calendar really fills up with clients, I can ask, you know, I just say, hey, it's this to work with me because I'm not desperate to get a new client. If I've had some periods where my list, my what do you call it, my roster spins pretty small, I may give some concessions and other things because like you know, I kind of need another client and so on, right? But so it's all about we can't be in this scarcity, this I need mindset, because then we're just gonna race to the bottom, right, on the pricing. What we have to do is we have to stand in our own power, our own ability to make impact and say, is this investment worth the outcome for that person, right? Is a better relationship worth it? Is is a new job or better business worth it, right? And if somebody has a, you know, it's a hundred thousand dollar problem and it costs, you know, ten thousand dollars to fix it, that's a that's a worthwhile investment, right, for that person. I'm still working on increasing that rate slowly.

Pedro Stein 20:48

I love the fact that you're still working on it, like being open about that. It's a hard topic, man. Like in my perspective, I in my own coaching business, I charge by the hour eventually, and then I realize people, well, two things, right? First, people are comparing my fees, the hourly rate, to I don't know, the cleaning lady, the dentist, the lawyer. You're turning yourself into a commodity, so that gets weird. The second point that's also got weirder is the fact that sometimes, oh, we have a one-hour meeting and then I I overextend that 10 minutes, and should I charge them more? You know, it gets weird. And if I ended up 10 minutes earlier, do I owe them money? You know, just getting to a math that is so weird and hard to navigate because at the end of the day, nothing magical happens when we hit the 60-minute mark. It's about the transformation we're trying to get to, right? If that takes half an hour, one hour, two hours, it doesn't matter, right? It's more about packaging properly to deliver the transformation. Only the reps, the repetition will tell you because you've been there, done that multiple times, so you know if you need an hour, 45 minutes, or half an hour, even a long time. Engagement, right? Monthly, yearly, whatever transformation or try to sell. So that's at least my perspective on pricing, right? Been there, done that. Uh now I'm curious uh about future, right? We're talking about your business, we're talking about, you know, what's exciting, what's next for you, you know?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, no, I mean, uh, this is one of these things I've really discovered as an entrepreneur. We can always create something new, right? We don't have to ask anybody for permission. The market will tell us if this is valuable enough. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. What I'm really excited about lately has been working with real estate brokers, because as you can probably imagine, those people are also running ragged, right? But building teams and helping them to get more better balance. So that has been a fun thing for me, and working with some teams and the team dynamics, right? So I do love, so it's me coming in in a team setting and trying to get those people to function better, have better communications and stuff like that. So definitely that's part of growing my business. I also love to work with, you know, another aspect, you know, I'm in my, I'll be 55 next week. You know, a lot of people in my age that own, you know, a business, like a plumber or painter or whatever, they need to start thinking about an exit, right? And coaching people through this thinking about exiting is another aspect that find that I seem find fascinating, right? Because what does it mean to sell your business or getting it ready to sell? Not that I'm an expert there, but I can help people think through it and then we can bring in the right people to help with that process.

Pedro Stein 23:36

Yeah, I love that. I was a high-ticket sales closer for a business coach for a while, and I joined a lot of the group meetings, the one-on-ones. So the thing is, I think the exit mentality puts you into a frame of if anything happens tomorrow, we have something or we're building something towards that. Like, for example, if you get sick or injured, right, the exit will force you into build the proper frameworks, the structure, the system. It doesn't rely so much on you and you can exit, which doesn't mean you have to. You know what I mean? It's more about the mindset behind it. So you're prepared if anything happens. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Totally, because there's so many, as you know, there's so many small business owners that are just they are the business. If they walk away tomorrow, even if they have employees and customers and stuff, there is no business anymore, right? Right, a hundred percent.

Pedro Stein 24:32

Now, curious about what you're you're working on now, right? Uh, we're talking about future, we're talking about that offer, the group offer. We're talking about helping people to potentially exit a business. So, whenever we're talking about next chapter, we're always refining something in the present. So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Yeah, I I think, you know, as a coach, you have to work on your own skills yourself, your your own personal skills so that you can serve. Because how do I demand a higher fee? Well, having higher impact, right? So I need to continue to work on me. And for the last year or so, it's been like delivering, delivering, delivering. It's like I need to step back. So this fall, I'm going to some conferences to learn some new things to really improve my abilities so that I can get into the rooms where there is some new opportunity. So that's important for me to work on, right? Um, also, you know, I love to get back to the community, right? So I live in a relatively small town, but there is a really vibrant entrepreneurship mindset here. So it's really fun for me to get involved in these different groups. Maybe there's, you know, maybe there's no coaching there, but maybe there's just some free mentoring there. Maybe there's an opportunity to get in an early stage, start up or whatever. But that's really fun because I get around younger people that are doing fun stuff that you know could be really impactful to the community or so on, right? So that's what I'm doing. I'm running a meetup here that's just a free thing. I had it last night. A lot of people showed up and stuff. So that's kind of the stuff. It's ongoing, right? I wouldn't say that there's like, well, next year I'm gonna build this massive coaching business. No, I love what I'm doing, and it's also it gives me the freedom. I love to travel. So if I want to walk away for two weeks, I just move a few coaching calls around and I'm good to go, right? So I do love that freedom as well.

Pedro Stein 26:17

Let's step in into a little bit of a sci-fi thing. I I'd love for us to do. Okay. Let's pretend, Jens, we have a time machine in front of you. We're gonna have two stops. The first stop, you're gonna go back around. I mean, you started a business 10 years ago, but you told me it was really coaching eight years in. So let's go back eight years and you can give yourself one piece of advice, business advice, whatever that looks like, to yourself that you wish you knew back then that you know now.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

We learn as we go along, right? I think the business advice for me is don't look at what you think your own value is, look at what the impact is that you have on that client and price yourself, price your services accordingly to the impact versus what you think your own worth is, right? But I definitely underprice myself early on, you know.

Pedro Stein 27:10

Yeah, I love that. I see a lot of coaches doing three things where with that. Okay, the first one is market benchmark, like they look at what other people are charging and they they put a price, okay? That's the number one. The second thing I see people doing is going back to what they invested in their careers as a cost-wise mentality, like, oh, I'm an expert because I invested X, Y, and Z on my certification, blah blah blah, and that's my price. The third one is the one that I really believe in, which is a transformation, or as you call it, impact, because that is really the one that is infinite sometimes, right? And when we're talking about pricing ourselves and talk about transformation, imagine what's the worth for your client if you help them transform their household, their life with their spouse, or even uh the bottom line of their business, right? They're being more profitable. That number can be so much more than cost and benchmark-wise, because first of all, benchmark-wise, you don't know their cost, right? You don't know people's overhead, you don't know what that is just like trying to adapt to a market. The third one, which you mentioned, that really stood out by looking at what people are charging. And I've seen people charge like success fees, you know, a lot of stuff with milestones. So it gets wild, but that's the one that I I'm really passionate about. So in the community, we've seen people in purple circle doing myself, not right now. I'm thinking about because I'm a career coach. So yeah, I've seen people in the space doing success fees, like getting a percentage of a first or second uh payroll, right? Like the the first the first salary or something like that. It gets really wild, okay? It's so interesting. I love the space. That's why it's so interesting, so surprising. Okay. Now we're gonna have our second stop. You can go back in time, those the time frame, eight years, right? And you can pinpoint at an exact point in time that looking back, you are like, oh, that's why I started this. That moment of realization, it could be whatever, right? And I know you may have multiple uh moments, but I want you to pick the top of mind, the one that made you realize, okay, I'm feeling so fulfilled right now, and this is the reason I started this and I made it, you know, got to the point of I'm not sure if it's informing someone's lives or even you, you know, someone else's life or even yours. But what that moment would be.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, I think in addition to mentioning the bicycle crash eight years ago, I think the other moment was really when my coach helped me leave my W-2 job and actually improve my relationship with my wife at the same time. It's like, wow, it is possible for somebody who's been stuck in a W-2 job for that many years, it is possible to make changes. So it's like, I want to help other people make those kinds of changes, right? So it's really just the impact it had on me was so inspiring that I was like, wow, I want to do this to others, right? With not to, but with others.

Pedro Stein 30:10

I love that. Now, Jens, if someone listening wants to connect with your follow your work, and we're gonna have all the links in the description, by the way. But where can people find you best and connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah, the easiest is go to my personal website, my first name J-E-N S, last name Nielsen in I-E-L S-EN.us. So jens Nielsen.us, and there's links to you know my coaching, my real estate investing. There's a link to get on a you know quick 20-minute call with me and so on. Then I'm on LinkedIn too, and so on. But my website is probably the best place to start.

Pedro Stein 30:44

Okay. You know, a few moments from this chat that I really feel the I would say it's even the need to highlight, okay? If you can bear with me real quick, I would say, first of all, looking back at the origin story, I'm thinking about the accident, obviously, and the five days in the ICU, right? And uh how that started an awakening process inside you, and that is so important. I would say also in the origin story, when we were talking about the shift on identity, and you were like, Yeah, a lot of coaches out there they love the craft, but they don't love to be a business owner, right? And there are many hats that we have to wear. We're talking about marketing, we're talking about sales. Sometimes we don't wake up in bed and say, Yeah, I I'm excited to do marketing, right? But it's it is part of it, right? It is part of the business, so there's that great reminder. I would say also when we were talking about being a consultant and a coach, and you were like, you know what? I didn't know the difference. Well, first of all, being open and being vulnerable about your your stuff that you don't know, that you don't know everything, that is always so cool to watch a coach doing, you know. So there's that, but not just that. Whenever someone brings up about coaching consulting, and actually, I'm a former consultant at Ernest and Young here in Brazil, and I am a coach, right? So I see this way consultants have all the answers, right? Coaches have all the questions, each their own lane. I respect both, but I love that quote, so I had to say it. Now, last but not least, connecting with the younger folk in your own community that you mentioned, right? Giving back and something like that. And you mentioned something very, very interesting that really hits home. And I'm gonna expand on that. My dad, he was a dean of a university here in Brazil, but he was like, he always told me one thing that caught my attention, which was I want to teach at least one class. He was in his 70s, and I asked him, Why would you do that? You're super busy doing the work, you know, you have a lot of admin stuff to do, decision making, blah blah blah. And it's like, yeah, two reasons. First of all, I connect with their energy, right? The young people. That is something that whenever he got out of a class, he was so different, you know. You could see it because it's connecting with people that believe in the future, that have an idea of purpose that they want to change the world. So that's cool, pretty cool. The second thing is like he was exposed to his ICP. He was talking not just about a university level and oh, our student. No, he was there in the weeds. I mean, minimum hours, obviously, because that was not a lot of leverage for him on doing that. Uh, but however, at least some so he can talk with the ICP, feel the vibe, and connect with the younger, younger generation. You know? No, this is just long my long-winded way of saying, Jens, that I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you on.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Thanks, Pedro. I had a lot of fun.

Davis Nguyen 33:47

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business to six, seven, and eight-figured years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.